


Vanya's

by Orockthro



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen, House of Vanya, Post-Series, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 06:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4554933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orockthro/pseuds/Orockthro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“FASHION BY STORM”</i><br/>Henry Pettersen<br/>December 18th, 1971, Women’s Wear Daily<br/>On the eve of the holiday season many eager shoppers line the halls of department stores all across America, searching for last minute bargains. I, however, am still searching for the truth behind Vanya’s, the successful and shockingly recent break into affordable fashion for the masses.<br/>What I am finding, dear readers, is an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a heavenly winter coat with a fur collar. </p><p>(Or, a post-series AU. The world tries to unravel Vanya's mystery, Illya tries to stay afloat and unravel a mystery of his own, and Rita Hogarty tries to do her job.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vanya's

**Author's Note:**

> Unending thanks to Elmey who was a very helpful beta and caught several things that I went "dohhh" to after she pointed them out. And thanks to a half dozen others who looked at this in various states of undress before I had any idea what I was doing with it. All mistakes are my own impatience to birth this monster.

_“FASHION BY STORM”_

_Henry Pettersen_

_October 30th, 1971, Women’s Wear Daily_

_All of New York knows the stir Vanya’s created when it opened its doors six years back. Vanya himself, whose personal origin story is shrouded in myth, continues to remain off the radar, even as his success this year brings his fall line into Women’s Wear Daily’s top ten fashion greats of the season._

_As frequent readers of this column might already be aware, I have tried repeatedly to get an interview with Vanya himself, but the man is as camera shy today as he was when he first broke into the business. Nonetheless, I bring you a sneak peak at the winter catalog, courtesy of Vanya’s crack design team. Unsurprisingly, it’s full of bold colors, careful silhouettes, and retains that certain... je ne sais quoi... that Vanya’s has cornered the market on. There is something about his designs, a striking violence in them, that captures our imagination and imbues at least this author, with a sense of strength._

_So while we yearn for the newest sweaters and blazers Vanya’s has to offer, I decided that in order to discover what Vanya prefered not to answer in person, I would have to speak to those around him. I began a series of investigative interviews to learn more about New York’s favorite fashion brand._

_This article is the first of a series, and one that I hope will lead to a greater understanding of the man behind Vanya’s._

_More on pg. 8..._

 

**

 

Vanya walks with a limp, nearly unnoticeable on good days, but considered and pronounced on the bad; it’s been the subject of more than one less reputable publications that spin more and more bizarre theories as the years go by. Rita’s favorite rag explanation was that he was in a hot air balloon accident, and being trapped in the netting and fabric of the balloon for untold hours is what inspired his mid-life decision to break into fashion. Vanya laughed when she showed it to him, and he keeps a copy of the article stuffed in one of his desk drawers, the one he doesn't let her organize and keeps locked. What the articles don’t say is that his left arm fatigues easily, his hand trembles when he loses his concentration, and his back aches when a low pressure front moves in.

Today there’s fog in the air, and the dark threat of a thunderstorm smudges across the rooftops on the horizon. By the time Rita blows in off the Manhattan streets, her boss is already in a mood, his posture crabbed to account for his aches.

"Where have you been?"

She doesn't dignify that with an answer. She does, however, pour him a strong cup of coffee and set out two painkillers on the saucer before she even sets down her purse. There's the offhand chance he'll take them if she says nothing and just leaves them there.

Rita Hogarty has worked at _Vanya’s_ for four years, directly for Vanya as his assistant for three and a half. His is a pseudonym, of course. She’d known that even before she went to work for him specifically. He goes by it at all times, but last year, when he bought her a bottle of scotch for Christmas that cost as much as her bonus, he shook her hand and said, “My name is Illya,” with an alarmingly fetching smile. “But it’s a secret. You can keep secrets, yes?”

She still calls him sir, half seriously now, mostly to ensure she doesn’t slip up. She’s deadly serious about keeping both his confidence and his company secure.

“You have LCI Design coming in at eleven to interview you, and Mutual Trust at one to discuss future loan options. Will you be needing lunch today?”

He shrugs, makes a face, and she makes a mental note to find him food of some kind or another. He goes too often without eating, especially on days like today when he’s liable to closet himself in his office and not come out again until it’s dark. Like his displeasure about the media, it isn’t a New York fad, just an unfortunate part of his personality.

He does take the saucer and the coffee, though, before he disappears, and Rita smiles to herself as she sits down at her desk. The door closes half way behind her, enough that she can still see his shadowed form as he paces and refuses to sit down, and she hears the rumble of the record player he keeps in his office coming to life.

Their offices are set up end to end, her own occupying an undefined part of the hallway blockading his from view, his door at her back, and her desk a great big traffic stopper. They are on the corporate floor of the business, bracketed to the side by the marketing department and the design teams, with the administration offices and pre-production on the floor below. But Vanya’s office, and therefore Rita’s office, is at the head of the stairs, and her position sometimes feels more like guard than assistant. People are forever trying to sneak in for, “just five minutes of his time.”

Her phone rings, and she picks it up, shedding her jacket as she does so. It falls off the back of her chair, and her frown at its refusal to obey her carries into her voice. “ _Vanya’s_ , this is Ms. Hogarty speaking.”

The voice on the line pauses before saying, “Ah. Hello, miss. My name is Nathaniel Silver. I work for a... ah. A private holdings company interested in partnering with Vanya--”

“I’m sorry, sir, all business interests need to be routed through our Marketing Department. I’ll transfer you to their number.” Odd that he even found her number to dial; hers is not the receptionist’s line.

“No! Wait.”

There’s something in his voice, even over the phone, that makes her stop. It’s a desperation, but not the sort she hears most frequently, men and women scrambling for a hidden glimpse of the man behind the fashion mask they can sell or use as social leverage. It’s raw desperation, and earnest, and somehow resigned.  

“You work with him, right?”

It’s embarrassing, later, how easily she can trace the reason for not hanging up on him down to one word. He didn’t say, “you work for him,” but, “with him,” and the distinction is so minor and so enormous that Rita squints, purses her lips, and says, “Mr. Silver, was it?”

“I’m not the media, I’m not out to try and hurt him. I, ah, just want to know. Is he alright?”

It sets her back a minute. From the corner of her eye she can see Illya behind her, pacing the length of his office with his arms crossed over his chest as he stares down a pinboard of proposals. The office is as modest and severe as his personality, with a few windows, but nearly always drawn closed with gossamer blinds that let in light but no scenery. Today is no different, and he’s difficult to see, backlit by the gray thundering sky and blurry, just a smudge of a silhouette.  

She deflects, because it’s the only appropriate thing to do. “ _Vanya’s_ is a flourishing business, we--”

“Please.”

It’s a quiet word, just like “with” is a quiet word, but both apparently have the power to stop her.

“He’s just fine, Mr. Silver.” The concession is a small one.

A breath crackles the line. “Thank you Ms. Hogarty,” he says, and hangs up.

 

**

 

Sometimes Vanya doesn’t look at proposals, or design submittals, or fabric samples, or consumer reports. Sometimes he closes his office door and spends long hours looking through his locked file cabinet.

He operates under the pretence that she does not know about the locked file cabinet, or the large map he secrets behind the proposal board, but they both know she is entirely aware. She has to know about them in order to make sure they are both put away from sight and locked tight when unexpected visitors arrive.

“There’s a woman coming--” Vanya says, his breath coming out of him in thin almost-gasps as he laboriously rounds the top of the stairs. “Would you...” He stops lean against the edge of her desk for a moment, taking the weight off his hip. She doesn’t ask where he’s been; she booked his flight and knows he only just got off the plane. He probably ran to get back to the office.

Rita’s eyes flicker to the small desk calendar to her left; it’s November already, and her stomach flutters as she abandons her own desk to make Illya’s look presentable. The file cabinet is shut, but she doesn’t have time to check that it is locked, opting instead to tuck the much more obvious map behind the corkboard. As she does so, she notices another “X” drawn across a state, coinciding with Illya’s recent trip to Maine.

It’s November 22nd. She shouldn’t have forgotten the date; it’s marked on her calendar like it has been the last three years. November is hardly the busy season of the fashion world; gearing up for spring designs, the winter ones already on the shelves, and last minute marketing decisions for Christmas are the only things going on. The woman she can already hear coming up the stairs, behind Illya by only a heartbeat, is the exception to the rule.

She’s just grabbing a plate of crumbs off the edge of his desk and dumping it into the trash bin when he straightens himself, runs a hand through his hair, and walks into his office to sit down in his chair like he’s been there all morning.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” Rita starts to say, because his meetings with this woman every year are always implicitly private ones, but then the click of high-heeled boots is nearly at the top of the stairs.

“Too late,” he mutters, and looks her in the eye. Rita stares back for a second; his eyes are very blue, even when he’s desperately unhappy like this.

"Illyusha, darling,” the woman purrs, a distant but powerful sound just behind Rita’s back. “It's been too long."

He shifts in his chair when he sees her, just a little, but enough that she knows the man sitting with his shoulders straight and his head cocked isn’t Vanya any more, but Illya completely. This man is far less the reticent genius, all pointed looks, gritted teeth, and clenched fists.

"Not too long by half," he says coldly to the woman as she rounds the top of the modernist staircase and comes to rest at the landing in front of their offices. But he says it with the odd sort of hatred in his voice that melts off his lips and is only half sincere. He stands, as if he hadn’t just sat down, and she crosses past Rita’s desk into his office to kiss him on both cheeks.

"Half indeed. I'm afraid neither of us were the better of that pair." The woman, near to Illya's age but his opposite in every other regard, looks out of place in the clean lines of the executive office. She's decked in jewels and a fitted coat made of real fur that makes Rita's, a beautiful piece in its own right, look downright cheap. When her gaze shifts to Rita it sends a shiver down her back. When she first laid eyes on the woman, years back, she was convinced she was a movie star of some sort. Who else could look like she did or command such presence in a room. Now she’s far less certain.

“Leave us, darling,” she says to Rita, waving a hand in dismissal. Rita quirks her eyebrow and looks to Illya, who nods resolutely. She turns, shuts the door behind her, and sits down at her desk.

There are contracts to write for manufacturers and suppliers, new ideas to organize from the design team for Vanya's approval, and more filing and drudgerous work than she cares to remember. But her eyes, and ears, keep turning to the closed door behind her back.

The walls are thin, intentionally so, she thinks, because very little of this building is unintentional, and Vanya, in addition to all his other personality quirks, is a also bit of a control freak. Despite that, she can hear next to nothing from the office. A few muffled words here and there, enough to hear that the cadence all wrong for English, but nothing more. She knows eavesdropping is hardly decent behavior. But she also knows, professionally, that it is almost part of her job description. Keeping an eye on Vanya, getting him to the meetings he needs to go to, and knowing which ones he doesn’t, anticipating when he needs a convenient phone call to interrupt, knowing which calls to divert. All this she learns from paying attention, from listening in, and it has made her that much more adept at her job.

"Until next year, darling," the woman says behind her, startling Rita half out of her wits. She hadn’t heard the door open.

The woman bends low to speak quietly in Rita’s ear. "Do keep an eye on him, will you dear? He is such a dreary man, and I do worry about him." Then, with a flair, she disappears down the stairs and back into the freezing rain as if she were never there.

In the wafts of the woman's perfume, Chanel #5, a ghost of her even now that she's gone, Rita swivels in her chair to look behind her into Vanya's office.

The blinds are drawn, hardly unusual, and his bent form is hunched on the sofa. But he’s as still as a statue, and something about his posture strikes her as wrong.

"Sir?" She takes a step into the room. "Are you alright?"

She smells it as soon as she nears him. Alcohol; vodka, if the half empty bottle on the end table is anything to go by. He doesn't often drink during day hours. Judging for how much of it hangs in the air, enough to overpower the residual perfume, he didn't stop at just a few, either.

"Of course I’m alright. I'm always alright," he says, and to his credit he does not slur his words. "Ms. Hogarty, it is very important that you do not speak of this to anyone."

For a long second she thinks he means his drinking. "Of course," she says, half miffed he would even think to worry. Confidentiality is a large portion of her job, and she has never done anything to indicate she is anything other than perfectly close-mouthed about both his business and his person.

"You mustn't try to find out who she is," he says, his accent thick and his words formal. "I know you’ve wondered. It's dangerous," he says, "Truly. I should not have let you be here." And he stares up at her with those blue eyes until Rita can do nothing but nod.

"Is there... do you need anything?"

He hangs his head in his hands. "Nothing. There’s nothing." And, blearily after a second, as if realizing his state, "Thank you, Ms. Hogarty. Please close the door. I should not be seen for awhile, I think," and he shares a wry grin with her, only half as drunk as she thought he was.

 

**

 

_“FASHION BY STORM”_

_Henry Pettersen_

_November 27th, 1971, Women’s Wear Daily_

_According to legend, Vanya appeared on the fashion scene as if hatched from a particularly well designed and accessorized egg. In the beginning no one could attribute his unique designs to a particular school of thought, let alone a school of brick and mortar. But no one, fashion designer or otherwise, comes from nothing. In this series, I take it upon myself to source the origins of Vanya’s creator, Vanya, and unravel the mystery._

_The first person I tried to see was his assistant, Ms. Henrietta Hogarty, but she appears to have inherited his reticence. Instead, I was able to schedule an interview with a member of the sewing staff of Vanya’s downtown Manhattan office, Mr. James Jones, who asked that his name be changed for what he called personal security reasons._

_I met Jones at a coffee shop near the office; it’s a bustling part of town, and Jones had the look of a man who might miss his subway. He checked his watch as soon as I sat down. What follows is a transcript of our conversation._

_JONES: I only have ten minutes._

_PETERSEN: I understand. Mr. Jones, I asked you here today hoping you could shed some light on Vanya, the man behind the name, on behalf of New York’s fashion forward members. You’ve worked for Vanya’s for the last five years, is that correct?_

_J: Sure._

_P: I won’t ask for any secrets about the upcoming line, ha ha, but I will ask this - what is it like, working for a man who is so secretive himself?_

_J: Look, I don’t want to get into any trouble._

_P: Let’s start with something easier. You work on clothing prototypes? Transforming early drawings into mock-ups, is that correct?_

_J: Yeah, yeah it is. Look, do you think we can hurry this up?_

_P: Have you met Vanya personally? He must come look at your work._

_J: This was a bad idea. I need to go._

_P: Is there a reason you are uncomfortable talking about him?_

_J: You’re not the only one interested, that’s all, and they read papers like everyone else. I need to go._

_Mr. Jones left, his coffee only partially drunk, and his interview has left more questions behind than answers. One thing we can take away from this interchange is that Vanya, who is camera and interview shy both, clearly maintains his privateness even while at work, and we, dear readers, are not the only ones who have expressed an interest in him._

_Perhaps Vanya’s is looking to expand its scope into the more couture as well as the department store. Or, perhaps, Vanya’s has gained the attention of those interested in acquiring the business._

_Reader Trisha, who wrote to me last week, thinks Vanya’s has something up its sleeve for the future, and hopes it expands into the venerable world of wedding dresses. I, however, worry that the future of Vanya’s is less clear day by day._

 

**

 

Nathaniel Silver calls in early December for a second time, not long after the yearly Woman in Fur incident and the subsequent but not unexpected Depressed Vanya week. She recognizes his voice over the phone, which surprises both of them.

“Ms. Hogarty--”

"Calling again, Mr. Silver?"

"Am I so obvious after only a single call?" He’s fast on his feet for being so obviously taken off guard.

"You are not as sneaky as you think. You called just after ten o'clock last time, too. And you have a very distinctive voice."

"And you, my dear, are far too bright to be an assistant."

"And you are going to get nowhere without my say-so, so perhaps I'm exactly where I ought to be. Not all seats of power are thrones."

He laughs, a genuine laugh, too. She's long since learned how to tell the faked laughter from the real over a telephone. "Can I help you with something, Mr. Silver?"

"Is your answer the same?"

"About _Vanya's_?" She's overtly aware of Illya behind her, pacing in his office and waiting anxiously for word from the department store number crunchers on sales for the first batch of the Christmas season's sales. She shouldn't feel guilty for talking to Mr. Silver, and she's hardly giving away state secrets, but something about the whole situation puts her in a playfully clandestine mood.

"About one Vanya in particular."

"More or less," she admits. "The season has not heralded quite the high spirits the new line of women's outerwear anticipated."

There's a long pause on the other end, and she wonders if she's taken the game too far. "Ms. Hogarty, I was wondering if you might meet me for lunch."

"Lunch?"

"A meal in the middle of the day, often eaten with too much haste, at least in New York."

"But--"

"My treat. And I promise not to ask any questions that make you uncomfortable."

She can see the shadow of Vanya behind her, shifting back and forward and restless. It's entirely the wrong thing to do, to accept this invitation. The man is clearly either obsessed with Vanya, or he's interested in Rita herself, and neither is acceptable nor appropriate.

"The Charleston Cafe? I promise I have no designs on your boss’s secrets. Or yours, for that matter.”

"Noon," she says quickly, before her mind can catch up and close her mouth.

He laughs again. "It's been a long time since a beautiful woman has said yes so quickly. Thank you."

"You don't know what I look like," she says as an incredulous response to his comment about her appearance, not the unlikelihood of her finding him or the reverse, although that is apparently how he takes it.

"I know. You'll be wearing something of... Vanya's, though, I'm sure. I'll find you."

She hangs up, nerves already starting to prickle. There's a not insignificant chance that she's greatly misunderstood the situation she just got herself into. There's an equally not insignificant chance that Mr. Silver is not the kind man she envisions him to be.

She stands, stretches her legs, and spends the two hours until noon idly checking and rechecking the same document for errors without any success. Damn Mr. Silver, and damn herself, too, for falling into whatever this is that she’s fallen into.

At ten minutes till noon she dons a _Vanya’s_ coat and a _Vanya’s_ scarf, both from this year’s collection and both not only beautiful but doing very well in the market. Then, after checking that Illya is still squinting at his secreted map under the pretence of reviewing swimwear designs, she goes to lunch. On the way out the door she stops in the ladies room and applies a fresh coat of lipstick. She looks at herself in the mirror, frowns, and wipes it off.

The Charleston Cafe is a bustling place; at noon it’s next to impossible to get a seat, and she stands awkwardly in line for a sandwich and a coffee, looking over her shoulder every half second.

“You must be Ms. Hogarty.” She jumps out of her skin, grateful she has yet to get a hot drink to spill on herself, and whips around in line.

Nathaniel Silver is handsome: dark hair shot through with just a few strands of silver, and a trim form in well made clothes; not _Vanya’s_ lines, though. Something custom made, not off the rack. She knows bespoke when she sees it. He has expensive taste, and for a reason she can’t put her finger on, she’s reminded of the woman in white leather.

“I am. And you must be Mr. Silver. I expected you to be a figment of my imagination, if I’m honest.”

“And you’re exactly as I expected you: radiant.”

Rita grins and doesn’t blush. “You promised me lunch, Mr. Silver, not empty flattery.”

He grins back. “That I did. Why don’t you have a seat; I’ll pick us up something.”

“A seat? Where--”

Somehow, a table for two is open, tucked away from the window and Rita is certain it was occupied seconds ago. “How--”

“A gentleman must keep some secrets, you know,” Mr. Silver says, and winks as she sinks down into the chair. He returns, not long after, with two piping hot coffees and a lunch ticket.

“I hope you don’t mind me choosing this place. It’s not particularly upscale, but I thought you might prefer the crowd.”

“Why do I get the feeling, Mr. Silver, that the preference for cover was not simply in my best interest but yours as well?”

“Because you’re bright. I told you that before.”

The coffee is hot but devoid of milk or sugar, and she sucks at it slowly. It’s bitter, and either the situation or its acidity sits uncomfortably in her stomach. “Then please, do me the favor of being honest.”

He smiles, sad and surprisingly open. “I can’t.”

She hasn’t taken her coat off, and her purse is still in hand. She could stand up and walk out of the cafe now and this would be the end. He wouldn’t dare stop her, not in a well known and visible place like this.

“Please, Ms. Hogarty. I was honest on the phone. I don’t want to hurt him, I just...”

“What _do_ you want?”

“To know that he’s alright.”

“I’ve already told you that.”

“And why are _you_ here, Ms. Hogarty?”

This time she does blush. “You give yourself too much credit.”

He stands up, leaves his coffee undrunk on the table, and reaches into his coat to fish out a card. “The lunch is on me. But if you could do me the favor of calling this number if anything... happens?”

She tries to throw a hard edge into her voice as she picks up the card, carefully. “Are you expecting something to happen?” As far as she can tell it is exactly as it appears; a simple rectangle of cardstock with black lettering emblazoned on the front: Nathaniel Silver, no title, no business.

“It was good to meet you, Ms. Hogarty. Have a merry Christmas.”

 

**

 

The business card sits in her desk drawer next to the keys to the filing cabinet that holds their contracts. She ought to throw the thing out, but it’s become something of a talisman; she just can’t be rid of it.

Rita doesn’t have a lot to do with the day to day more mundane running of _Vanya’s_. She’s Illya’s personal assistant so she spends the vast majority of her time with him. The office is massive; a hundred employees roam the halls. Those who aren’t designing or sewing prototypes are running the numbers, managing business development, and keeping them all afloat. There are still a couple of people she hasn’t met even after working here nearly four years.

But even so, she starts to notice new faces.

“Who was that?”

Julie, one of the marketing team, squints as Rita points out a sullen looking man in a black suit. It pulls at his shoulders, and both women purse their lips. A lack of taste is fine for most men, but anyone working at a fashion capital ought to know better than to buy an ill fitting suit.  

“Not sure. Maybe one of Manuel’s new models? He’s certainly big enough.”

“In a suit that bad? Manuel would kill him.”

Rita peers around the corner to where the man has disappeared, but there is no sign of him. Odd; she didn't think the records room had a back exit.

"Security, maybe?”

"Maybe."

She makes a note to ask Vanya about it, but then there isn't time to ask him about anything not related to the Spring release for two days. And then it's Wednesday, and asking Vanya anything is off the table.

Vanya meets with a Mr. Daniel Hansen on the second Wednesday of every month in closed-door meeting that lasts three hours, and Illya only comes out for coffee and to roll his shoulders, grit his teeth, and go back in. Hansen introduced himself as, "a Company Man," when she first started, capital letters heavily implied, and then dismissed her out of hand. He doesn't work for _Vanya's,_ nor does he work for any publishing company or other business agency that she is aware of. What he does work is Vanya, and the second Wednesday of the month always begins with two pain pills and three cups of coffee by nine o’clock.

Today is a particularly bad Wednesday; the silence emanating behind her desk makes her more nervous than she'd like to admit. Usually there's some blustering on Hansen's part, some terse words on Illya's, that float through the thin walls. Today there is mostly quiet mumbling, and when the two men emerge from the office, they both look pale and tense.

"I'll be back next week," Hansen says without looking at her. He rarely acknowledges her presence. "I want those files, or you're out, you understand? I mean it. You need to hold up your end of the bargain here. Remember who’s got the leash?"

Rita pretends to update last week's design meeting agenda. It's probably painfully obvious that she's eavesdropping, but for once her ant-like existence in Hensen’s eyes is in her favor. She watches with side-long eyes as _Vanya's_ shoulders stiffen and he takes a slow breath. But his face, even half shadowed and hidden from within his office, is glacially calm.

"Perfectly. Leave. Now."

Hensen sweats, wiping a meaty hand across his brow to mop it up. "Don't forget--" The magic is broken when Hansen catches her glance, glares at her, and shuts his mouth. "Just don't forget," he says, and stomps out.

She's always found the monthly Wednesday meetings odd, but they were started before she began working for him, so she admittedly didn't think about them as much as she might have had they been new. By the time she got invested in the company and the man she was working for, the meetings were normal. When she first asked what they were about, Vanya replied in his charmingly cryptic way, “Testing the leash, that’s all.” Until recently, she always thought Vanya was the one holding the leash, not the other way around.

As Hansen leaves, all bluster and glares, she opens the drawer and lets her fingers find the edge of the business card. Funny, how comforting a worn corner of cardstock can be.

“Sir?” she asks, not quite looking at him, and making a note that the monthly Wednesday meeting seemed to have turned into a weekly Wednesday meeting.

“It’s nothing,” Vanya says, still standing behind her with his arms crossed. He’s hunched over again, which means his back is acting up. He never did tell her where the injury came from, although her own suspicions are much more mundane than what the newspapers dream up. An automobile accident, most likely. He doesn’t drive hardly at all.

“Do you need me to go through the archives in the Records room?”

“I need--“ He stops.

Rita swivels in her chair until she’s facing him and the rest of _Vanya’s_ is at her back. A strange parody, really. The desk drawer is still open. She could probably reach into it and pull out the card without even moving. It would be prudent to explain it, but that would require explaining her decision to visit Nathaniel Silver in a cafe, her decision to let him buy her lunch. Maybe that’s what Silver was aiming for all along; to have their meeting look so much like a buy-out she couldn’t bring it up without embarrassing herself.

“What I need, Rita,” he says. He so infrequently calls her by her given name that it jars her out of her thoughts completely. “Is for you to stop looking into all this.”

She flushes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

There’s very little humor in his darkened face, and for a split second she sees the cold fury that made Mr. Hensen break out into a sweat. “I have an errand to run. Please cancel my afternoon meeting.”

She cancels his meeting. She also cancels her dinner plans with her sister.

She takes the business card out of the desk drawer and secrets it in her purse between her sanitary pads and her powder compact, keeps it safe tucked in the paraphernalia of her femininity.

When she goes home that night she does everything as she normally would. She makes supper, an inelegant affair of leftover roasted meat on sandwich bread, and draws a hot bath. Then, while the water is running and while her brain is running too, she dials the number on the card.

It rings three times. She hangs up before it goes through, sheds her robe, and sinks into her bath. The water ripples over her shoulders and she ducks her head beneath until she can hear nothing but her own heartbeat, her own pathetic cowardice.

She doesn’t put the card back in the desk drawer the next day, instead she keeps it in her purse and lets it slowly find a home there. It warps with the curved shape of her bag, and eventually starts to smell like her perfume, too.

 

**

 

“It’s not that I care too much,” Linda says over a coffee break. “I mean, heaven knows I’m not in a position to complain.” She shifts her gaze to Rita’s, looking for that sisterly bond of camaraderie that is impossible to ignore. “But I wish there was a little notice, that’s all. It’s just the decent thing to do, give a girl a heads up before I get a huge heap of work.”

Rita cocks her head and pays Linda half attention. “Which project again?”

It’s a miracle Linda hasn’t given up on her; Rita admits she’s been a little too preoccupied to be a good friend, although they’re not close enough for it to be a true breach of conduct.

“The records, Rita. They’re moving whole file cabinets out of the Records room into some sort of corporate archives off site. There was a memo about it, but it didn’t get distributed properly. Something about better archiving.” Then, very hushed, she says, “Honestly, I think he’s rubbing off on you.”

A few weeks ago Rita would have rolled her eyes and smiled, maybe shared a cigarette with Linda and then headed back to her desk.

Now she asks, “Which files, exactly? And where are they going?”

Linda flicks the lighter and a flame bursts into life, hovering in front of her, not quite touching the end of the cigarette. “All of them. Every damn paper box and note, and no one seems to give a whit if they are in the right file, either. Better archiving my rosey behind.”

Later that afternoon, Rita goes down the stairs that lead from the corporate offices to the administrative ones, gets a second cup of coffee from the station near Records, and watches as large men in large suits haul boxes of papers out into the street and into large cars idling in the turnaround.

She feels eyes on the back of her neck and whirls around to find Vanya watching her, his face as blank now as it had been with Mr. Hensen.

“Coffee, sir?” She asks, and the excuse is as thin as the walls.

He’s obviously caught her out snooping, but he doesn’t call her on it. Instead he nods, lets her put a piping hot cup of coffee in his hands, and watches him watch her.

“If I can ask...” she finally says, because she’s not good at staying quiet, and apparently very good at trying to lose her job. “Where are they taking the files?”

“I don’t know.” It’s something in his voice, or maybe something in the way that he holds the coffee cup in his left hand, the one that shakes when he’s not in complete control, the one that’s shaking right now. It’s a raw honesty, raw fear. In that moment he sounds exactly like Nathaniel Silver did on the telephone that day he started all this, and Rita believes him.

 

**

 

_“FASHION BY STORM”_

_Henry Pettersen_

_December 18th, 1971, Women’s Wear Daily_

_On the eve of the holiday season many eager shoppers line the halls of department stores all across America, searching for last minute bargains. I, however, am still searching for the truth behind Vanya’s, the successful and shockingly recent break into affordable fashion for the masses._

_What I am finding, dear readers, is an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a heavenly winter coat with a fur collar._

_An anonymous source approached Women’s Wear Daily with documentation indicating that Vanya himself has been making frequent trips, both within the country and abroad, on an unexplained basis. This source, who wishes to remain anonymous but works at the company, has reported that these trips seem to have nothing to do with the running of the company, and that even his assistant refuses to discuss them._

_What we are left with, dear readers, is a flourishing but new presence on the fashion scene, with an owner who, apparently, comes from nowhere, and repeatedly goes on secret trips. What we are meant to take away from this new knowledge, this author does not profess to know. However, coupled with the general unease regarding his personage, one can only wonder if his enterprise falls completely within the law, and what secrets Vanya’s secretive nature truly hides._

_More on page 4..._

 

**

 

There’s a rumor, a nasty one, that Vanya is a smuggler who has finally been caught out. There’s an equally pervasive rumor that he hasn’t paid a dime in taxes for the last six years and it’s finally catching up with him. And there’s a considerably smaller rumor, but one that just doesn’t seem to die, that he is a witness for a major crime takedown and is hiding evidence that’s finally being discovered. The more loyal are sure that it’s all just a misunderstanding, or a confused attempt by marketing to draw hype for the upcoming spring collection. Most of the rumors die before they leave the office at the end of the day, but not all.

Linda hands her a cigarette at half past ten. “He is a secretive man. You know that more than anyone, I’d guess.”

Rita doesn’t say anything, but she takes the offered smoke.

“Do you think there’s anything to all of this?” Linda has the decency to look at her shoes. “Not that I think it’s anything really bad, I mean. But there’s something going on. You have to wonder. Did you know, one of those rag papers said he was a spy, a cold war holdover. That’s why they’re taking all the papers; he’s been storing codes, or selling them, or stealing them, or something like that.”

Rita does wonder. But not if Vanya is guilty of some legal or cardinal sin, neither of which she believes. She wonders, instead, how the company will come through this. It will need unquestionably strong leadership.

She puts out the cigarette, says, “Vanya is no spy. And he’s not anything else, either. Whatever’s going on will blow over. You should concentrate on preparing for the spring line. We’re going to need a strong collection to make it out of this.”

Linda rolls her eyes. “I think you’re the only one on the planet thinking about the company right now, and not your boss.”

 

**

 

The men in the bad suits stay and mill the hallways, looking out of place and menacing, and the Wednesday meetings between Illya and Mr. Hansen become everyday meetings. By Friday he looks as pale as the window blinds in his office.

“Sir...”

“No, Ms. Hogarty.”

“But--”

“You’re going to be kind to me. I don’t want your sensitivity. And Vanya doesn’t need it.”

He’s sitting on the sofa in his office not pacing it from wall to wall, which ought to be cause enough for concern. Add in his baggy eyes and the shake in his hand that hasn’t abated since Wednesday, and Rita’s half concerned he’s going to faint right then and there. Except he looks downright murderous.

“Then tell me what I can do instead. Don’t treat me like an enemy, and don’t treat me like a stranger, either.”

His eyes flash up to meet hers, suddenly bright and manic. “What makes you think you aren’t?” Then he shrinks back down, his face falling back into its silent immovable front. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so I advise you not to pretend otherwise.”

“You’re right: I don’t know a damn thing that’s going on. So please tell me. I can’t help you if you don’t, and helping you is my job.”

He holds her stare for a few long seconds before finally ducking his head and waving a hand. It’s not a victory for her, she knows better than to take it as anything but a misdirection. “Take the rest of the day off. This will all be over by next week, one way or the other,” he says, with self confidence that rings false.

“And what does that mean?” The rumors, all two dozen of them, flood back into her mind, undesired and exceptionally clear. “Those men. Are they from the government?”

“Go home, Rita.” She starts at her name from his lips. “Come back Monday.” There’s an ultimatum in his voice, one she can’t ignore. She turns, her feet feeling heavy, and he closes the door behind her. She hears the lock slip into place.

The card from Nathaniel Silver is inexplicably heavy in her purse as she walks out the door that afternoon. She passes a woman in as she leaves, tall and unwavering. She doesn’t recognise her at first; she’s wearing flashy clothes, but they’re more subdued than last time, the fur something indescribable and forgettable instead of mink.

“Oh, good,” the woman says, all shark smiles and satin, and suddenly Rita has no question of who this woman is. “I take it he’s free?” Her makeup is hurried. On top of the simpler clothes, she looks almost a different woman. Rita blinks.

“I--” It’s not November. She’s only ever come in November before.

The woman stops her with an iron grasp at her elbow They’re in the building’s lobby, but it feels all the world as if they were alone. “Don’t mistake me for an enemy, darling. Our natures may not change, but our allegiances do, and the world changes most of all.”

Rita swallows. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The woman in fur smiles, slow and dangerous. “Forgive me, just nonsense talk. Go have tea with your boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

The smile doesn’t slip. “Don’t you? Silly me.”

She’s halfway to the subway before she realizes the woman slipped something into her pocket. She keeps a wide-eyed hold on the folded piece of unfamiliar paper until she’s unlocked her front door, sat herself at her kitchen table, and poured herself a stiff drink. She finally breaks open the scotch Illya bought for her last Christmas. It’s blisteringly good, and goes down like fire.

She draws the slip of paper out of her coat pocket and lays it out in front of her.

NS,

I will, of course, burn this letter later. I burn all these letters. You would be happy to know, I think, that I haven't gone completely soft since leaving Uncle.

I miss you. You would probably have died on the spot to hear me say such things. A poor choice of words considering, forgive me, but the sentiment remains true. I hurt to realize I will never see you again, my friend, nor listen to your voice. I did not realize a heart could ache so.

Please forgive me. Your God, forgive me, too. I don’t think I can look for you anymore. I think I’ve run out of time.

IK.

She shivers as she reads it. It's intimate, and clearly not meant for her. The writer intended it be destroyed, and she’s not sure she’s comfortable with the fact that it’s in her hands now, not ash. She doesn’t know who they are. The initials are unfamiliar, the phrasing even more so.

And then she stops, sets her drink down slowly, and pulls the business card out of her purse. It’s worn now, from her handling of it these past long days. But the numbers are embossed and perfectly legible. As is the name: Nathaniel Silver. NS.

She takes two more long pulls of the liquor before picking up the telephone. She dials the number and doesn’t hang up, but there’s no answer. She flings the phone against the wall.  

 

**

 

Monday comes, and _Vanya’s_ the business continues on. Not quite as if nothing has changed, but with the large-scale slowness of a corporation that is reluctant to do anything, even grind to a halt. Vanya himself goes through his Monday motions with a casualness Rita can tell is fake, but that probably looks fairly authentic to the untrained eye, as if his office hasn’t been taken over by monkeys in suits, as if there isn’t something rotting at its core.

Rita half expects the woman in fur to be there when she comes in, perched on her desk, perhaps, or draped over Illya (“Illyusha, darling,” in the woman’s sing song, husky voice), but she’s not. Illya alone stands in his office and stares at the walls like a caged animal.

Her employer is on the verge of falling apart, and so is his business. For nearly an hour that morning, nursing the same cup of coffee until it grows stone cold, Rita wonders why that thought causes so much discomfort within her. It’s not as if she couldn’t find another job, and it’s not as if Illya, Vanya, is the easiest person to work with. Some people might take it as a sign, start updating their resume and calling up old contacts. She knows Linda is doing just that; get out before the ship sinks, she said to Rita, with only a hint of regret.

One of the boys from the sewing shop drops off a scrapped design at the bin at the edge of her desk as he leaves from a meeting with marketing. The bin nearly full, so she draws a breath and takes it to the loading dock out the back, and sits it on top of another box from the accounting department. One of men is watching her, and she glares at him. His suit is mustard colored. Nothing Vanya ever made, even some of the less well reviewed items, was ever that hideous.

When she gets back to her desk and sips at her cold coffee, Rita realizes abstractly that she likes it here. Not simply because it’s steady work, and not because she’s more afraid of the possibilities of something unknown. She likes Illya. She likes _Vanya’s._ She likes the clothing they make, likes how accessible it is to the modern woman or man of various incomes. And she likes that Illya trusts her in his business decisions.

It’s trust she misses so much, and she despises Hensen for taking that away from her.

Rita grabs a handful of papers off her desk without looking at them, tucks them under her arm as a pretence, and walks into his office. She closes the door behind her, and he looks up. Except for when she negotiated for a raise, she’s never closed the door like this before.

“Ms. Hogarty? Do you need something” It is interesting phrasing. What she needs is for things to return to normal, but suddenly, standing in the office with the blinds drawn and the door shut, and Vanya’s face just as drawn and shut, she’s not sure that is even the remotest possibility.

She sits herself down on the sofa, realizing after the fact it’s the same position she’s seen Illya take after Hensen leaves, and puts the papers to the side. He follows the movement, and then meets her eyes.

“I need your trust.”

His face doesn’t appear to change, but Rita has been his assistant for years; she can read the discomfort in the angle of his jaw alone.

“I have helped you run this business for nearly four years. I’ve helped you choose which color green to run on the lady’s rain coats this last spring, and I lied to that woman who kept trying to get a date with you. I’ve kept your confidence about your map, the one with all the crossed out states on it.” he stiffens noticeably, but doesn’t look at it, keeping his increasingly furious stare fixed on Rita. “And I’ve done everything I can to make sure this place runs like a well oiled train. So please. Trust me. Let me help you.”

He licks his lips, opens his mouth, and her phone rings at her desk. Her eyes skitter towards the closed door. She’s risen before she even realizes it.

“Go on,” Illya says. “One of us should do our jobs.”

She nods, darts out of the office, closing the door behind her as she leaves, and rushes to pick up the telephone on its fourth ring.

 _“Vanya’s,_ this is Ms. Hogarty speaking,” she says, breathing slow and trying not to sound harried over the phone.

“Rita.”

Rita sinks into her chair. It’s Nathanial Silver.

“Mr. Silver.”

“You called me first, Rita.” She did, didn’t she. Friday feels like an ice age ago, and fingers idly find their way into her pocket where they touch the folded note hidden there. NS.

“I didn’t leave a message, Mr. Silver.”

He laughs, softly, but it’s genuine; he’s not making fun of her. “You are the only person I gave that number to. It was you or a ghost.” And something about that comment makes him laugh again, even as it leaves Rita cold and nervous.

Out of that nervousness more than anything else, she pulls the slip of paper out of her pocket and turns it about in her hands, the phone neatly captured between her shoulder and ear. And then she stops, the sound of Mr. Silver’s gentle breathing over the phone echoing and transporting, as she realizes a detail she missed.

The folded note is written on Vanya letterhead.

She ought to have recognised the paper bond immediately: she puts it through her typewriter every day, files it every day, delivers notes on it to Vanya every day. And now she dumps it off for the men in suits to remove every day in their black, windowless trucks every day too. The logo has been cut off, with the obvious intent to hide its origins, but the watermark is still half visible. So much of the fashion world is always under contract and confidential that _Vanya’s_ lawyers deemed it necessary to specially order in paper for documents. She runs a hand on the outside of the fold and her fingers freeze in place.

Vanya doesn’t write very much himself. She takes meeting minutes on his behalf, and he dictates most other things to her to type. But nonetheless, her mind’s willful refusal to recognise Illya’s handwriting is painful to realize. This is his hand, on his paper, no doubt stolen by the Woman in Fur before he had a chance to burn it like he intended.

“Are, ah, are you alright? Is everything alright, rather?” Mr. Silver has obviously taken her long pause as reticence rather than revelation.

“I’m not sure I should say.” She folds the paper closed again and tucks it deep inside her purse, until it rests next to NS’s business card.

He hums over the line. “You might be right. Would you like to have lunch again?”

“No. No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I--”

“Ms. Hogarty. Rita. Has something happened?” He sounds genuinely concerned, and Rita is so damned confused by it all.

“Frankly, yes.” Her stomach flutters. “And just as frankly, I’m not sure you aren’t caught up in the middle of it.”

Silence sits between them for a second, comfortably. “Then why did you call me?”

The door behind her is shut tight. She can’t hear Illya pacing, so he is likely sat down in his chair staring at that board of his. The board filled more with black lines crossing off cities and states. That board where he’s maybe looking, quite desperately, for the man she’s on the phone with.

“Because even if you are involved, in whatever capacity that may be, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s in trouble.”

“I knew you were bright,” he says, and she knows she’s not imaging the strain in his voice. “Don’t tell me over the phone, you’re right about that. In fact, I believe it might be time for more drastic measures. Will you take a message for me? A message for... Vanya?”

She doesn’t know why, but she doesn’t tell him about the message she has from Vanya that may well be for him. She just says, “Yes,” and pulls out a loose leaf piece of paper, the same paper as the note, and a fountain pen, and gets ready for dictation.

“Just tell him... just tell him his solo vacation is over.”

She writes it down, hesitates, and then signs it, “NS,” at the bottom. “I’ll see that he gets it, Mr. Silver,” she says.

“Thank you. I’m disconnecting this phone line after tonight,” he says, as if that were a perfectly normal thing to say. But Rita supposes that very little in her life has been perfectly normal in a long time, at least not as far as _Vanya’s_ is concerned. “If you need to contact me, do it before then. Goodbye, Ms. Hogarty.” And then he hangs up.

When she goes back into Vanya’s office, the board is not out. Instead he has the window drapes pulled back, and is staring out at the streets of New York below, shoulder to the wall and not facing it fully. His knuckles on the white, sheer fabric are pale.

“This came for you sir,” she says without preamble.

He stares at her for a long time before he lets go of the drapes, which fall back into their closed position, bathing the office in a dreary dim, and looks down at her hand. She wonders how much of the conversation he overheard, or if the paranoia in this place is seeping into her.

He takes the note, and then pales rapidly. He didn’t look well before; whatever this business is that’s going on has done his already thin form no favors, and it’s clear from the purple smudges under his eyes, not quite hidden by the thick frames of his glasses, that he’s not sleeping well. But now, with the note in his hand, the tremor he tries to hide acts up, and both he and the paper flutter.

For several seconds he doesn’t breathe, and then he breathes too fast, before gaining control of himself. “Where did you get this?” He doesn’t give her time to answer. Vanya closes the distance between them in a leap, locks the door behind her, and pushes her against the wall. She doesn’t breathe. “Who gave this to you!”

“I took it down over the telephone,” she says. Keeping calm under pressure is listed under her job description, but she doubts whomever wrote it envisioned this particular situation, being held against the wall in the corner office. “A man named Nathaniel Silver called me. He’s been... we’ve both been... concerned. About what’s happening.” About you, she doesn’t quite say.

She narrows her eyes. Now is the time where if she wanted, she could back away. She could shy before playing her full hand. She thinks about the mustard colored suit, and says, “You wrote him first.” She takes the folded note the Woman in Fur gave to her and presses it into his hand atop the phone message.

He pales even further, drops his hands away from the wall, releasing her, and stumbles to the sofa.

“I burned all of these. All but...”

Something in Rita clenches. “Is it him? Is this the person you’ve been looking for?”

On the sofa he looks like a hunched child. His elbows press into his knees, and the notes, both of them, are held in his hands by fingertip and thumb alone.

“Do you have a lighter, Ms. Hogarty?”

She hands hers over without hesitation, and watches as he flicks it open, holding the two pieces of paper directly above the flame until they catch fire. The ashy remains fall to the ground, and he stamps them out, grinding the remains into the carpet until it is a black spot between them.

“No. No. He is dead and I am finally coming to terms with that. Whoever this... person... is, they are a mere shade. A doppleganger.”

The sound of Mr. Silver’s voice, half distorted by snow over the phone line, is not far removed in her memory. The concern there, transmitted across that wire from god knows where, was genuine.

“Why?”

“To hurt me. To make me complacent. To use me. Or, if all fails, to make me... go away.”

She shakes her head; none of it makes sense, and she says as much.

He smiles at her, patronizingly, dangerously. “Oh, to be innocent of it all,” he says. “You wish for my trust, yes?”

“I don’t wish for it. I think I deserve it.”

“Then, Ms. Hogarty, how do you feel about being a spy?”

 

**

 

_“FASHION BY STORM”_

_Henry Pettersen_

_January 1st, 1972, Women’s Wear Daily_

_On this very special edition of Women’s Wear Daily, celebrating the start of a new year, we bring you a sneak peak at Vanya’s Spring collection, that will help pull you out of your post-holiday slump._

_We also bring you news of the company which is considerably less fabulous._

_This week, rather than presenting you with an interview, I hope to shed some light on the mysterious background of Vanya. Rumors have been circulating, both at our own press and proliferating well beyond, about Vanya’s origin story from the time he opened his doors, but the man himself has declined to comment, repeatedly._

_So rather than resort to rehashing old articles, I went to the best source out there: paperwork. As business owners know, bureaucracy is the knot that ties us together, and that is certainly true for a multinational fashion king like Vanya. Certainly there have to be records, even buried ones, that cite his legal name and origins._

_And while I wish more than anything else I could share that with you, it would seem the secrecy behind Vanya’s extends past vanity. The lease on his business, like everything else, is held by his corporation, and not a single hint is dropped as to his true name. His business, much like his personage, appears to have sprung fully formed into the world._

_I consulted with an attorney, who declined to comment on the legality of such business practices, or of their prevalence, in the fashion world or otherwise._

_In a sense, that is a story in and of itself. Perhaps Vanya is not a man at all, but like his office, simply a marionette, owned and operated by something much larger than the man himself... And if that is the case, who is pulling the strings?_

_Further speculation on page 8..._

 

_**_

 

Rita wraps the scarf tighter around her head, tucking the tail around the bottom of her face, as if to hide from the wind rather than sight. It’s a _Vanya’s_ scarf; so is her coat. The layering is all Vanya, too. He tucked a pair of round sunglasses over her face that belonged to the Woman and Fur and said, “Blending in in New York City doesn’t work. No one tries to blend in and those who do stick out like a sore thumb. If you want to hide from someone’s view, you need to instead become a different person.”

Becoming a different person is considerably more difficult than she imagined, standing behind the door of a chocolate shop boasting 50% off Christmas boxes.

She’d called Mr. Silver the night before, and he’d answered, surprised, claiming he’d been just about to disconnect the line. He’d agreed to a meet at the same cafe the next day, and in collusion with Illya, they decided she would not show, that she would hide in the background (hide as someone else, rather) and follow him to wherever he went after the failed meet.

So far he hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s waited for forty minutes beside the busy cafe, and its clientele has shifted from bustling lunchtimers, to those running late back to work, and Rita had to move away and to the chocolate shop across the street to avoid being obvious.

Now he stands, checking his watch again, and sets off north down the street. Rita has to hurry to keep after him, holding her copy of Women’s Wear Daily under her arm and staying a half block behind him at all times. But she doesn’t have to follow him for long, which is good since her boots, not _Vanya’s,_ are soaking through with the slush of the new year.

Silver stops next to two men in dark blue suits, poorly tailored and the color even more poorly chosen for their complexions, and says to them, “It was a bust. I told you she wouldn’t show.”

Rita’s heart leaps into her throat. He couldn’t possibly have known that.

The larger of the two men sighs. “Agent Silvestri, I don’t need to tell you how disappointed I am, both in you and the... situation.”

Silver, Silvestri, whoever he is, quirks his head to the side, his expression, even from this distance, unflappable. “Ah, I’ll just go write my report then, shall I?”

“Do,” says the first man again, and the underlying threat there is so thundering it’s a wonder no one else on the street, for New York city's streets are never anything but full, don’t stop and turn and look at him. But no one does, and Rita, tucked into a crevice between two shops with her newspaper over her face, squints to try and make out any defining features about the two men.

The men walk away, and she loses sight of all three of them in a flurry of discount shoppers. The slush makes everything a dirty gray on the street; even the blue suits fade into it, and when she sticks her head out of her cubby, it’s to look directly into Mr. Silver, Agent Silvestri’s brown eyes.

She starts to let out a scream, but his gloved hand slips over her mouth, while the other winds around the end of the Vanya scarf she was previously so proud of. Until this point in her life, she’s never thought a piece of fabric could betray her, and she curses at it as much as she curses at him, although no matter where her curses are directed, they are silenced.

“Ms. Hogarty,” he says. She can’t see his face; her own is pressed half into his hand and half into his jacket as he pulls her into a mockery of an embrace, she supposes to put on a front for any passerby who might take umbrage at her kidnapping and likely murder. But for all that his face is obscured, his voice is transparent. He is afraid. It startles her so much she loses some of her own fear.

“I will let go of you if you promise not to call out,” he says.

She nods her head vigorously, and a half second later feels his grasp across her face slacken, though he keeps her pulled tight against his body. The second she is able, she lets out a scream that is almost instantly aborted by his hand once more.

“Fine,” he says. “We’ll do this the less pleasant way.”

For the next ten minutes, Rita fully expects to die, and to do so in increasingly unpleasant ways. Her mind fixates on all the small things she ought to have observed earlier: how dangerous Mr. Silver looks, and how dangerous Illya looks too; the fact that the agents Silvestri met with were clearly CIA or FBI or some manner of alphabet soup, and that they looked awfully like the men who had been haunting her office for the last month; how Mr. Silver never asked her any of the questions people usually do, nothing about _Vanya’s_ clothing or his background, and he never volunteered how he knew him nor why he was concerned.

But Silvestri doesn’t walk her into a back alley and stick a knife in her, nor does he stick anything else in her. Instead he walks her briskly towards a car parked two blocks east, leads her into it, and locks the door behind her. To her surprise, he gets in and begins to drive.

“What, no partner? I thought CIA worked in pairs?” She’s fishing somewhat obviously, but since she’s already been caught out, her mortification at that is considerably lower.

He grins at her from the rearview mirror, and she’s shocked that it looks genuine. He’s a tremendous liar. “So you figured that out, eh?”

“I did. Are you going to kill me?”

His eyes meet hers in the rear view window again, the transparency between them restored. “No,” he says, and he says it so kindly she almost forgets he’s causing Vanya such pain. “No I’m not going to hurt you. Or kill you, or do, ah, anything else unsavory. I know you’re confused, Ms. Hogarty--”

“Confused! I’m not confused at all. I may not know all the details, but I know you’re terrorizing an innocent man!” Her own betrayal bubbles to the surface. How disappointed she is, for falling for his ruse. Illya was right all along; this man is part of the same group that has been trying to pull _Vanya’s_ apart by the seams, and governmental body or not, it’s clearly a rogue action; clearly in the wrong.

Oddly, Mr. Silver ducks his head to the left and looks pale. He turns onto a busy street, and Rita realizes, absently, that they’re headed back to Manhattan, back to _Vanya’s._

“It’s more complicated than that. A lot more complicated.”

Maybe it’s everything that’s happened all coming to some strange catharsis all at once. Maybe she’s just finally lost it. But Rita feels only frustration in the back seat of the car, hurtling towards the unknown with a man who is a lie. Her fear has evaporated and she feels no anxiety, no shame in her part of this whole mess, only annoyance and pity.

“Do you know what I do, Mr. Silver? Five, sometimes six days a week for the last four years?”

“Ah, you’re a secretary.”

“Wrong. I untangle lives. I organize chaos, I fit CEOs into schedules that would make anyone else cry, I call bankers to tell them to renegotiate and when to do it by, I wake up in the middle of the night to make sure the Paris office is on track with the new lines. And I make sure that Illya eats.” She doesn’t miss the start that runs across her kidnapper’s shoulders at the name. “All of these are nearly impossible feats, and I do six of them before breakfast every damned day.”

“Alice in Wonder Land?”

“And do you know what, Mr. Silver?”

“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

“There is nothing more vile on this planet than what you’re doing.”

They turn right and head south. His eyes flash to hers in the mirror again, and she almost pulls back. There’s anger there. “Then you haven’t seen true evil, Ms. Hogarty. And you should be glad.”

They drive another five minutes in silence. The anger fueled fearlessness is evaporated, and Rita spends those five minutes looking at the road, the back of her kidnappers head, and her own restless hands.

“Why are we going to _Vanya’s?”_

“This game has gone on too long.”

The bottom of the footwells is too far away; she’s lightheaded. “Please don’t kill him.”

He swerves. “I’m not going to kill him. Good god, I wouldn’t-- I don’t have time to explain, but--”

“Make time!”

His hands are shaking on the steering wheel. _Vanya’s_ is in sight, maybe that’s why.

“Come on, we have to beat them up there.”

“I’m not leaving this car until you tell me what’s going on.” Namely, who they have to beat up to the office, and why.

He slaps the steering wheel as he parks. “You’re not in a position to make demands!”

She doesn’t have children, but she has a niece. She learned fast that the way to command attention wasn’t to shout, it was to speak very, very quietly. “I’m not demanding anything,” she says. It’s almost lost in the noise of the traffic. “I’m telling you. I will not be a part of his deception.”

He leaves the car running and doesn’t turn towards her. “It’s outlandish.”

“At this point not much isn’t.”

“I’m not going to hurt him, I promise. I’m with the CIA. Or, at least, I have been for the last six years. Before that, I worked with Illya as part a now disbanded international organization.”

He knows Vanya’s name. She knows she hasn’t said it outloud, which means the CIA is less at a loss than the general public, or Agent Silvestri knows more than he shared with his coworkers.

“UNCLE,” she says.

“You’ve heard of it, then? Not many people care anymore. It’s old news, now that all the agents have been repatriated or reassigned or moved on.”

She bites her lips and lets him continue. Her aunt was in the UNCLE program until a few years ago. She wouldn’t tell anyone what happened, just said she worked security now and not to talk about it. Come to think about it, it wasn’t too long after that that _Vanya’s_ started up.

“Illya thinks I’m dead.” There’s a hollowness to his words that even New York City at five in the evening can’t drown out. “We were caught in the explosion that took out UNCLE headquarters, and ah, he... he was hurt. And I was hurt, too. Only...”

“You’re wrong. He didn’t think you were dead. He’s spent years looking for you. Only you lied to him. You tricked him. So if you try to tell me he’s your friend...”

“I know. And I suppose I did trick him. For six years. It’s a long time, Ms. Hogarty. Long enough for wounds to heal, at least mostly. It was a direct order, you know.”

“Hm?”

“To leave him behind. I knew he was safe, or at least safe enough, and I thought I could look after him better from within the CIA, and there were... things that needed taking care of. It was the only way I could be sure they wouldn’t get their claws into him. He deserved a chance at a normal life, after everything we put him through. But the CIA has been forcing him to be an information carrier in exchange for keeping his visa. I finally have the proof to get some higher ups turned out of the organization, but despite everything, it turns out they got their claws into him anyway.”

“You _are_ one of the claws, Mr. Silver.”

He flinches again. “It’s Solo, actually. Napoleon Solo.”

“You did say it was outlandish.”

She sits there as they sit in traffic, as they are one more piece in the cog of New York City’s madness. Manhattan has never felt so small.

“You haven’t told me what you intend to do, Mr. Sil...” she catches herself. “Mr. Solo.”

“I’m going to fix everything.”

 

**

 

At half past five, _Vanya’s_ is hardly a graveyard, but the hustle and bustle of the workday is winding down. People are leaving with jackets clutched close and heads down, and no one so much as blinks at her and her companion. Although calling her would-be kidnapper a companion is a generous term. Despite her unease, Rita finds herself believing his story, outlandish as it may be. His fear feels real, and it radiates through his hand as he tightens his gloved-grip on her own. It’s his left hand. His right is free and hovering near his chest where, she imagines, a gun hides.

“Is he up there?” Solo asks her, as they head towards the stairs.

“He will be. He’s been sleeping in the office.”

They climb the stairs silently after that; the whole upstairs is darkened, the corporate offices apparently emptied some time earlier. Illya probably sent everyone home, not unlike what he’d done to her the other day. There is light seeping from under his door, though, and as they near it, Solo slows his pace until he is hardly moving at all.

“What’s the matter?”

He stares at her, and then the door. He’s still wearing the poor excuse of a suit, and he looks wrong in it, like a man playing dress up. His earlier suit, the bespoke one, suited him so much more. She’s still in Vanya’s finest, courtesy of her spy mission from Illya earlier, and she feels much the same; playing dressup in someone else’s clothes.

“Nothing. What if--?”

She looks at the light under the door, at the shadow from within that casts it dark as a figure paces, and squints. “You’re afraid.” She scoffs. “You’re the one who lied to him.”

“It’s--” He stops completely. “It’s been a very long time, Ms. Hogarty.”

Rita stares at him, and then untangles her hand from his. The past two months have felt like a very long time, too. She has been lied to, taken in by a federal agent, made to be a spy, and watched a man she respects and his company both crumble. She strides past her own desk to Illya’s door, knocks once, and swings it open without waiting for his reply.

Illya stands there, bathed in the soft yellow light from his desk lamp, frozen in apparent shock. He doesn’t say anything as Rita strides into the room, and he doesn’t say anything as Mr. Solo follows her. She shuts the door. She rests her back against it, and watches the two of them circle until they are faced off against one another.

“Illya,” Mr. Solo says very softly, very gently, as if to a horse about to bolt.

And Illya, far more a crocodile than a horse, leaps at him. He rushes at him until Solo’s back is at the desk, and when he trips there, falling against it, he grasps his head in both hands, turning it one way and then the next closer to the light.

“Illya...”

“Shut up,” he hisses, pushing his fingers into Solo’s hair and examining the skin near his ears. “Plastic surgery has advanced considerably. Scars are easier and easier to hide.”

Solo, very slowly, takes one of Illya’s scrambling hands and, captured in his own, brings it down to his shirt collar. “It’s me, Illya. It’s really me.” He undoes a button and Rita sees a mass of scar tissue over his collarbone as he forces Illya’s hand to touch it. He does the same with what looks like a constellation of small scars on his back, and Rita blushes at the sight of so much unexpected skin.

“It’s me,” Solo repeats, just as gently and softly as before. There is none of the rush in his voice now that there was down in the car, although there is a certain level of urgency that hasn’t quite evaporated.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Illya says, and drops his hands away from Solo. “You always did know how to make an entrance.”

He smiles at Solo, unsure-looking, and Rita feels her world start to shift left of center. This is Illya in his true nature. Vanya was always a mask, and therefore _Vanya’s_ is only a mask, too.

“And now we need to make an exit.”

Shockingly Illya nods and doesn’t argue, and begins to rummage through his desk for various objects while Rita watches on.

“The CIA have been harassing me,” he says while he pulls something spherical out of his locked drawer. Christ almighty it’s a grenade. “I had reasons to stay in the country--” he shoots Solo a sidelong glance, “and they decided that was leverage.”

“Yes. I know. I’ve, ah, been in the CIA the whole time.”

“You were never good at undercover work.”

“Well now, that’s hardly fair! Simply because I don’t wear funny hats, doesn’t mean--”

They bump into one another as they dance around the desk, and both stop. Solo’s hand lingers on Illya’s forearm, and they make quite the sight, his shirt still half undone from showing off his old scars.

“Tell me. Was it worth it?”

Solo takes a deep breath. “It allowed me to accomplish several important goals, yes.”

“Mr. Waverly?”

“It took me two years, but he’s recovered and now in a safe house in New Jersey. Illya... I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t...”

Illya glares at him. “I know. I’m not pleased about being left out, but I understand what duty means, and what sacrifices must be made in its name. Perhaps far better than anyone else. Now, we should stop dallying and deal with the situation at hand, yes?”

Rita clears her throat, and both men look to her with surprise, making it embarrassingly obvious they had all but forgotten she was in the room.

“And just what situation is that, exactly?” she asks.

Mr. Solo, and the name feels much more right in her mind than Silver or Silvestri, looks between her and the door she’s blocking with her back, and then to the purse clutched in her hands. “The group of men who are coming up this stairs, probably at this very moment, to extradite our friend Mr. Kuryakin, and ruin his business in the process.”

Rita takes a moment to clarify that Mr. Kuryakin is in fact Illya, and then nods her head solemnly.

“And,” Mr. Solo says, “I think I may have a plan.” He looks to Illya who nods.

 

**

 

“Oh! Mr. Hensen. Thank god. It’s me, don’t you remember? Mr. Vanya’s assistant?”  

Poised in the back stairwell between the administration offices and the loading docks, Mr. Hensen and his men startle when she runs up to them.

“What are you doing here?” He barks. His men are no longer in suits, but tactical gear, and for a moment the sight of guns so callously on display freezes her in her step. But their hands aren’t on triggers, and they are pointed at the floor. She takes a shuddering breath.

“I was staying late for Mr. Vanya.”

He looks at her, in one of the top-of-the-line dresses they’d snagged from downstairs in a quick flash of inspiration, and that Vanya, Illya, had quickly pinned and stapled to fit like a glove, and sneers.

“Figures. Well don’t worry Ms--” He flounders when he’s unable to remember her name, and she takes a quiet, frantically nervous joy in that. “... Miss. He’s a bad man and we’ll be taking care of him.”

“Oh god, thank you. You wouldn’t believe some of the things he’s had me do lately.” Namely lie to federal agents. “He’s upstairs in his office.” Her job is simple. Distract them for a few moments, get their minds on something else, and send them up straight away before they have the chance to do any damage to the rest of the business.

She points the way, although they certainly know it by now, and they trundle themselves up the staircase with all the grace of a herd of cattle. At the top the door is open, and, following several paces behind, she catches a glimpse of the events as they unfold. The bright flash of what Illya promised her was only a stun grenade, the subsequent and nerve-wracking bang of two gunshots, and a howl that she prays doesn’t come from Illya. She creeps forward, her pulse thundering in her ears, and hears Mr. Solo.

“These are some pretty incriminating documents, Agent Hensen. Why, it looks like you’ve been blackmailing and accepting bribes, doesn’t it. And what’s this? Why, if that’s not evidence of a laundering scheme coupled with payoffs for sensitive code information, I don’t know what is.”

“Silvestri? Fuck. What the fuck?”

“Language like that has never solved anything,” Solo says, and he tisks. RIta risks sticking her head into the room, and is blessed with the site of all of the CIA men save Hensen on the ground, hog tied in bright chartreuse fabric from Illya’s design stash, and both Solo and Illya standing, unhurt in the smoky remains of his office.  

“This is a setup!”

“You would know,” Illya says, speaking up for the first time. His voice is glacially cold, and Rita finds herself shivering. She always knew that deep down, he was a dangerous sort of man. He was quiet about his past in ways that people with disreputable histories often were. But knowing he kept a grenade in his office not ten feet from her for the last four years, concussion or not, is a pill to swallow. Chewing that information takes time that they don’t have, so she swallows it whole.

The final part of her duty in the plan is coming. She stands tall, hoists a large camera from the marketing department out of her purse, and walks into the office. The flash bulb echoes the concussion grenade, and Hensen stares up at her, white faced and eyes red and open, surrounded by documents of a nature Rita can’t even begin to guess.

“Thank you, Ms. Hogarty,” Illya says, and waves his gun at Hensen until he lies on the floor next to his agents, and ties him with the same bright fabric. “You have done admirably. I cannot imagine you expected to find yourself doing this when you signed up for the job all those years ago.”

She puts the camera away carefully, and dodges the remnants of Illya’s favorite lamp as she picks her way towards him and Mr. Solo. “I can’t say that I did.”

Solo winks at her. “But you didn’t mind it, did you.”

She grins back. “I can’t say that I did.”

 

**

 

_“FASHION BY STORM”_

_Henry Pettersen_

_February 25th 1972, Women’s Wear Daily_

_In a groundbreaking, and frankly unexpected move, Vanya’s recent secrecy and scrutiny has come to an explosive conclusion. It turns out all the to-do was in preparation for a massive, in fact, global expansion of the brand. Vanya’s outlet stores can now be found in off-the-fashion-map locations such as South Africa, Alaska, Poland, Hong Kong, and Zimbabwe._

_Vanya himself has declined to comment about the expansion, which does not surprise the author at all, but newly appointed CEO of the company, and Vanya’s former assistant, Ms. Henrietta Hogarty, reports that the expansion was long-planned, and the reason for many recent hush-hush operations. She also states that goal of these outlets is not to generate profit but to promote intellectual, and we can only imagine fashion, freedom across the globe, although she, along with the author, is confident that Vanya’s will do as well in these more remote locations as it has done in it’s already founded overseas operations._

_Ms. Hogarty’s recent appointment as CEO is not the only change to Vanya’s staff. Newly hired Director of Operations, Mr. Solo, and Chairman of the Board, Mr. Waverly, join the team in what I have no doubt will make for a very interesting fashion season, both at Vanya’s, and across the globe._

_More on page 12...._

 

**

 

Rita sits at her desk. It’s considerably larger now; a price she is happy to pay for her new position. Also considerably larger are her responsibilities. Attending design meetings, overseeing profit talks, and keeping the place afloat is now on her shoulders, not Vanya’s. He retained the title of Creative Director, and as far as the outside world is concerned, the change is to permit him to focus more on design and less on the day-to-day operation of the business.

Hers, the most secure room in the newly renovated Manhattan _Vanya’s_ office, holds the entrance to the side of _Vanya’s_ that the public will, heavens permitting, never see. And it’s through that door, the slowly rebuilding United Network Command for Law and Enforcement on its other side, that Illya walks, loading a clip into his gun as he joins her.

“Ms. Hogarty. Any news before I go?"

“Illya,” she returns. “The marketing department is preparing for the summer line with an aggressive magazine advert plan, and the fall designs look terrible, so you’d better come back in one piece to fix it. How long will your mission in Hong Kong be? I’m trying to schedule an interview for you next week.”

He scowls, and she doesn’t want to be the person, half a world away, who finds themselves on the other side of his gun. “I thought you taking over meant I was free from that incipient drivel. And don’t you have an assistant of your own now?”

“Unfortunately for you, you’re still irresistible. The harder you fight it, the more irresistible you become. And Linda’s on vacation, as part of our new benefits plan.”

He harrumphs. “Give those wretched reporters my regards, then,” he says.

“And tell the Hong Kong office they need to send me their profit reports. I need to know how the long dress styles are doing there in that heatwave.”

When Mr. Solo walks through the same two foot steel door, carefully secreted behind her back, she says to him, deadly serious, “Take care of him now.”

He winks. “Always, Ms. Hogarty,” and then to Illya, “We’d better not keep the world waiting, tovarich. This is one mission that’s been a very long time coming, and only the beginning.”

It’s four hours later, near the end of the work day and Illya and Napoleon are long since departed, when a knock at her door nearly has her leaping out of her seat. It’s a knock at her front door, not the secret one to the new UNCLE headquarters, and she has to pause a moment to remember that Linda is out and there’s no one guarding her, so to speak, from the every-day commotion of her job.

“Come in,” she calls out, after making sure that the UNCLE door is safely hidden.

The woman in fur smiles at her, a slow, frightening smile that Rita hesitantly returns.

“He isn’t here at the moment. This is my office, actually, not his.”

She smiles wider and continues to approach. “I know. My name is Angelique. I’m sure he never mentioned it; he’s not the sort of man to kiss and tell.”

“Or kiss.”

She winks. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

They sit for awhile, Angelique nearly recumbent on the sofa she inherited from the splintered remains of Illya’s old office, in oddly companionable silence. The woman sheds her coat, a different one from last time and one of _Vanya’s_ now, and lights a long cigarette, apparently getting comfortable in Rita’s office with no explanation of her presence.

“Can I ask why you gave me that note?” The unspoken question of why the woman stole it from Illya’s private drawer is unasked, but probably not well hidden. Despite her new office and her association with a spy organization, Rita knows herself too well to think she’s one of them.

“Things were boring. The CIA, THRUSH, one alphabet soup mixed into another... nothing was the same. I liked the old days. Things were so much more... interesting, then.” She blows a smoke ring and stares at Rita through it. “You see?”

Rita almost sees. She sees maybe more than she would have liked to before. She thinks of the half truths she learned from Illya and Mr. Solo, the overly simple explanation given to her by Mr. Wavelry, "A leopard cannot change its spots, Ms. Hogarty, but frequently it changes its name until one reminds it of its true nature."

“And are things interesting now?” Rita asks, aware of the leopard on her sofa, because, as dangerous as she is, she can be nothing else. She considers pressing the small button under her desk that alerts UNCLE security to a problem, but she keeps both hands casually draped across her fiscal reports. 

Angelique laughs. “Quintessentially, wouldn’t you agree?”

Rita feels a dangerous grin growing on her face, one she knows she’s seen on Angelique, on Mr. Solo, and on Illya especially. It grows when she realizes how much like them she’s become. She doesn't risk a glance to the UNCLE door, but she acknowledges it with a smile. "You know, I rather think you're right. Cheers," she says, raising her half empty mug of stone cold coffee. "To interesting times."

Angelique tips her cigarette. "My dear, you are in for that and more." And then, picking up her coat and leaving only the wafting scent of her perfume and her cigarette, she leaves the office.

Rita stares after her, licks her lips, and smiles as she goes back to her duties as CEO. Interesting times have certainly arrived. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I birthed it! And let me say, it was not an easy birth.  
> Comments are love! <3


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